the New-Zealand Pike Whale. 451 



toothed Cetacea (Denticetes). In the porpoise the palatines 

 merely form a band between the maxillfe and the pterygoid 

 bones ; but they vary in size in the different genera, being 

 larger in some, as Platanista ; they are very small, and the 

 pterygoids large in Hyperoodoii (Cuvier, Oss. Foss. v. t. xxiv. 

 tig. 19,^ & A) ; and they are large in Catodon (Cuvier, Oss. 

 Foss. V. t. xxiv. fig. 1, ??i & w), where they approach nearer to 

 the shape of those of the whalebone-whales. 



One (the left) ear-bone is attached to the skull, and appears 

 to differ from the ear-bones of Balcenoptera rostrata figured in 

 the 'Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum,' 

 p. 191, fig. bQj in being shorter ; but it cannot well be seen, 

 as I do not wish to detach it from the skull. 



The baleen is elongate, triangular, longer than broad at the 

 base — when diy, horn-coloured, blackish on the straight edge, 

 whitish on the inner hairy margin and at the tips. A blade is 

 15 inches long, and 2 inches wide at the base ; but there are 

 some rather larger. 



The vertebra are 48 — cervical 7, dorsal 12 (Avith eleven 

 pairs of ribs), lumbar 13 (with lateral processes, without any 

 perforation at the base), caudal 16 (with only rudimentary 

 lateral processes or none, and a perforation at base). There 

 are seven chevron bones ; but it is not quite certain that they 

 are perfect. 



Ribs eleven pairs. The first rib with a single head, and a 

 broad sternal end ; the other ribs slender, cm^ved, all similar. 



The cervical vertebrae are seven, all free. The atlas with 

 a blunt broad process on each side ; the axis thicker, with a 

 keeled, wide, hood-like process above, the lateral processes 

 abbreviated, leaving a broad rounded notch, most probably 

 elongate when complete. The second, third, fom'th, and fifth 

 cervical vertebrae have a process from each lower side of the 

 body. The processes of the second, third, and fomih are com- 

 pressed, rather dilated at the ends, and rather produced at the 

 upper margins of the end ; those of the fifth are cylindrical, 

 rather swollen at the ends ; and there are only rudimentary ones 

 on the sixth and seventh. The bodies of the vertebrae are 

 oblong, four-sided, broader than high. The neural canals 

 oblong, transverse ; of the axis smaller, more rounded ; of the 

 other cervical vertebra3 wider and lower, nearly as broad as the 

 bodies of the vertebra?, and in this respect very different from 

 the canal of the fifth cervical vertebra of B. rostrata, figured in 

 the 'Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum,' 

 fig. 51. 



The sternum broad and expanded in front, and with a 

 short stem behind ; the front edge rounded, with a slight 



